It may just be me but in what seems to be the trend of all trade shows right now numbers seemed to be down (to my eyes at least)

3 years ago show goers would have been able to visit strong and significant stands by Apple, Canon, Hasselblad and Microsoft to name but a few.

None of those players were represented in any significant way at all this time.

It is kind of a chicken and egg situation, fewer big players attend, attendance at the shows falls, the big names find it easier to justify not coming.

One could argue that with the high cost of stands at trade shows they have made the right call.

The beneficiaries, in my humble opinion, were the very well attended stands of Sony, Panasonic and Nikon.

At the Phase One stand I saw bigger crowds and more interest than ever, thanks in no small part to the ground breaking IQ digital camera backs. In the middle of these uncertain times Phase seems to be bucking the trend. Since shooting the food book 'Loose birds and game' I have seen further benefits of the platform compared to 14bit DSLR files, with CMYK conversions from the native 16bit Phase One captures being on a totally different plane.The amount of fiddling with the files was minimal, compared to the sleepless nights the small but significant hardcore of DSLR files gave me.

If you are involved in shooting pictures for books I would heartily recommend you investigate them, even if all you can afford is a used one. It's about the quality of the file, not just megapixels.